By Hector Castro

Death Penalty

What is the death penalty?

The Punishment of execution, administered to someone legally convicted of a capital crime.

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• Lethal Injection

• Electrocution

• Gas Chamber

• Hanging

• Firing Squad

Types of Executions

Lethal InjectionLethal injection is the

practice of injecting a

person with a fatal

dose of drugs

(typically a

barbiturate, paralytic,

and potassium

solution) for the

express purpose of

causing immediate

death.

The cost for one

injection is $1,286.86

A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used.

Gas Chamber

Execution by electrocution, Its usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body.

Its not legal in California.

Electrocution

Hanging is the suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck.

Not legal in California

Hanging

Execution by firing squad, sometimes called fusillading (from the French fusil, rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Execution by shooting is a fairly old practice.

Not legal in California

Firing Squad

Black- 465 People

Latino- 106 people

White- 764 people

Other- 24 people

Who has been Executed?

It costs far more to execute a person than to keep him or her in prison for life. A 2011 study found that California has spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment since it was reinstated in 1978 and that death penalty trials are 20 times more expensive than trials seeking a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. California currently spends $184 million on the death penalty each year and is on track to spend $1 billion in the next five years.

Life in prison or Being Executed?

Over $175,000 spent a year per inmate that is on death row.

Over $170,000,000 spent a year on all inmates on death row.

Less then $48,000 spent a year for a regular inmate doing life in prison.

Cost

Taxpayers pay for capital punishment. This is because tax dollars are just to support the prison system. It costs more to keep someone on death penalty than in the general prison population

Who pays for the death penalty?

• California taxpayers pay $90,000 more per death row prisoner each year than on prisoners in regular confinement.

A new report by the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice has found that the death penalty costs California taxpayers $137 million dollars each year.

Cost to the Taxpayers

On the average California spends close to $50,000 on one prisoner a year.

They spend close to $9,000 on one student a year.

They spend an average of $40,000 more on prisoners then on students.

Prisoners vs students

In my opinion after researching the death penalty and life in prison I believe that life in prison is a better decision. I believe so because if everyone was sentenced to life in prison it would save our state a lot more money. With all the extra money that we would save we could spend it on schools and hospitals, things that would actually benefit us.

So life in prison or the death penalty?

• http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty

• http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

• http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.subissues.php?issueID=000139

Work Cited